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Janiva Magness – Love Is An Army

2018 release. After Janiva Magness added a 2016 Grammy nomination to her 27 Blues Music Award nominations – with seven wins, including Entertainer of the Year – she might have taken at least a short rest on her laurels. Instead, one of the preeminent voices in contemporary American roots music has raised the bar for herself. Magness’ fourteenth album, Love Is an Army, is a brilliantly crafted bridge between the past and present, blending the echoes of classic soul and country music with timeless themes of love and the very contemporary sound of protest. Love Is an Army’s dozen songs reverberate with the timeless character of the Memphis rhythm & blues patented by the Stax and Hi Records studios, especially in tracks like “Back to Blue,” which opens the album and sets it’s tone, and “Hammer,” which features Grammy Winner and multiple Blues Music Awards winner Charlie Musselwhite on harmonica. Another Tennessee music city, Nashville, is the geographic touchstone for the title number, a duet with Texas singer / songwriter Bryan Stephens, and for “On and On,” with Poco frontman Rusty Young on pedal steel guitar. Like Magness, both Stephens and Young are on Blue Elan Records. Other guest artists include the legendary R&B singer Delbert McClinton, Mississippi hill country blues torchbearer Cedric Burnside, bluegrass guitar and banjo virtuoso Courtney Hartman of the band Della Mae.

Gina Sicilia – Tug of War

2017 release. Tug of War celebrates Gina Sicilia’s status as one of the reigning voices in modern blues and marks a potent evolution in her songwriting. The 11-song set is Sicilia’s seventh release since her emergence as a doyenne of the genre a decade ago. Today, Sicilia’s experience and the fully realized powers of her warm, flexible, emotionally nuanced singing resonate like never before. Produced by Grammy-winning producer Glenn Barratt and Grammy-nominated producer Dave Darling.

Rita Coolidge – Safe In the Arms of Time

2018 release from the veteran singer/songwriter. After ten years during which she bore witness to some of her life’s greatest joys and deepest sorrows – and the publication of her acclaimed 2015 memoir, Detla Lady – Rita Coolidge is back with Safe in the Arms of Time, her 18th solo album and a reaffirmation of her indomitable spirit and unquenchable creative thirst. Safe in the Arms of Time is colored by Rita’s pivotal role in the Los Angeles singer-songwriter scene of the 1970s, where she made her bones as a top backup singer – that’s Rita on the refrains of Stephen Stills’s “Love the One You’re With” and Eric Clapton’s “After Midnight” – before embarking on a platinum-selling solo career. “The idea was making an album that had the same appeal of my early records – to make a roots record about my own roots,” Rita says. Rita and producer Ross Hogarth gathered an all-star lineup of the era’s top musicians – guitarist Dave Grissom, bassist Bob Glaub, John “J.T.” Thomas on keyboards and drummer Brian MacLeod – at L.A.’s Sunset Sound Recorders, the famed recording studio where Rita recorded her first solo albums. The album includes a duet with Keb’ Mo’. Three songs were co-written by Rita Coolidge. Other songwriting contributions include Keb’ Mo’, Graham Nash and Chris Stapleton.